Disturbing secrets behind what will be the world’s biggest airport

What is Dark Tourism?

What is Dark Tourism?

A security guard stands inside a terminal at Istanbul's new airport ahead of its opening. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

BY any measure, this airport is seriously impressive.

Due to occupy a massive 7600 hectares on the shore of the Black Sea when it is fully completed, Turkey’s newest airport is a feat of design and engineering — its soon-to-be-iconic tulip-shaped control tower has already collected an international architecture award.

It will offer passengers the latest in airport technology, including artificial intelligence, and be energy efficient.

When the final phase is completed, it will be handling more than 200 million passengers a year on six runways — more than doubling the traffic of the world’s current largest airport, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta.

The airport known, for now, as Istanbul New Airport is on track to be the biggest the world has ever seen.

Turkish police patrol a terminal at Istanbul's new airport ahead of its opening. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

The first stage of the estimated $51 billion megaproject is being unveiled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a grand ceremony today, on Turkey’s Republic Day.

But as the president reveals one of the boldest achievements of his 15-year presidency, little will be said of the enormous struggle to make his vision a reality.

As many as 400 deaths on site, working conditions likened those in a “concentration camp” and tough crackdowns on workers begging for relief are the dark secrets of Istanbul New Airport.

The control tower is shaped like a tulip, which Turkey’s national flower. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

The airport project is significant for Turkey and highlight of Mr Erdogan’s construction boom. The final stage will be delivered in 10 years to deliberately coincide with the 95th anniversary of the Turkish republic.

Some flights will begin this week and it will soon replace Istanbul’s main international airport, named after the modern Turkey’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, which closes later this year.

The airport is also looking to usurp the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as the biggest air transport hub in the region.

An aerial shot from September 23. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

“This airport is going to be the most important hub between Asia and Europe,” said Kadri Samsunlu, the head of the five-company consortium, Istanbul Grand Airport (IGA), that won the $35.5 billion tender to build and operate the project in 2013.

“Istanbul New Airport will remain ambitious for growth and we will carry on mastering the challenge to be the biggest and the best. That’s our motto.”

Turkey plans for the airport to be the biggest in the world. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

A new airport in Istanbul was necessary due to growing congestion at Ataturk Airport, one of the busiest in Europe, where there was no space for new runways.

And the frantic rush to meet Mr Erdogan’s October 29 deadline for stage one of the new airport has been intense — and deadly.

Workers at the construction site that has been mired by controversy. Picture: AP/Lefteris PitarakisSource:AP

Workers’ union Dev-Yapi-Is has identified 37 worker deaths at the site and said more than 100 dead workers remained unidentified.

Some 36,000 people are registered to work there.

“The airport has become a cemetery,” Nihat Demir from the union told The Associated Press.

He said the pressure to finish the project as “relentless” and said long working hours had lead to “carelessness, accidents and deaths”.

Workers’ deaths are estimated to be in the hundreds, according to unions. Picture: AP/Lefteris PitarakisSource:AP

But a report published in Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet in February said up to 400 workers had died since construction started in mid-2015.

The report quoted workers who said fatalities were being covered up, with dead workers’ families being paid hush money, according to the Arab Weekly.

Turkey’s Ministry of Labor denied reports of worker deaths in their hundreds in an official statement after Cumhuriyet’s report only 27 workers had died at the site, due to “health problems and traffic accidents.”

Workers have complained about safety and living conditions. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

As well as poor safety conditions, workers have been struggling with bedbugs in accommodation, overcrowded sleeping quarters, substandard food and inadequate transport to the site, and long delays in wages.

Workers take a break on April 13 as pressure mounts to meet the project’s deadline. Picture: AP Photo/Lefteris PitarakisSource:AP

On top of has been was intensifying pressure to complete the work by the deadline.

“Because the construction site is a black box, it’s isolated from the world,” Dev-Yapi-Is’s president Özgür Karabulut said, reported the Irish Times.

“The IGA construction site is a slave camp. This is the 21st century but we are working there like slaves from the 19th century.

“(IGA has) a plan to finish by October 29th. It’s not easy. That’s why they are pushing workers to work harder for longer hours.”

A September 23 aerial view of the airport. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

The airport has also been criticised by environmental groups, who claim some 2.5 million trees will have been destroyed by the end of the megaproject, as well as destruction to

wetlands and coastal sand dunes.

Animal experts also warned the airport sat on a vital bird migration route, and that would increase the risk of migrating birds getting sucked into plane’s engines.

Workers take a break four days out from Monday’s unveiling. Picture: AP/Emrah GurelSource:AP

Meanwhile financial observers said foreign lending has financed much of Turkey’s construction boom, leaving the private sector with a massive $280 billion debt — at a time when rising inflation and the recent crash of the Turkish lira sees the country facing an economic downturn.

“This airport is meant to show what the Republic of Turkey has achieved during the era of Erdogan, and represents the boldness and grandiosity of that vision,” architecture and political power expect Heghnar Watenpaugh from the University of California told The National.

“But everything we’re hearing about the economic downturn, the labour issues, shows how these grand projects are vulnerable to political and geopolitical issues.”